The Downside of Scale for Journal Publishers: Quality Control and Filtration
Scale can be achieved by broadly outsourcing the editorial process. Does this lead to a loss in quality control, and is this acceptable?
Future of the OA Megajournal
Predicted to radically consolidate STM journals, the OA megajournal has found a successful niche market. The same can be said for MOOCs.
Creating an Incentive: Can Social Media Offer Enough Carrots to Entice Scientists?
Scientists seem uninterested in participating in social media offerings, as the rewards offered are generally of insufficient value to warrant the effort required. Instead of just hoping that scientists will suddenly see the value in your product, why not offer incentives for participation?
Sexism in Peer Review
When sexist comments make it into a technical review of a research article, journal editors and publishers are wise to take a moment and think about processes for finding, responding to, and eradicating this behavior.
Open Reviewer Identities: Full Steam Ahead or Proceed with Caution?
Open peer review has been growing steadily but its implementations take many different forms. Alison Mudditt and Véronique Kiermer take a deep dive into the question of whether reviewers should be openly identified.
Chefs de Cuisine: Perspectives from Publishing’s Top Table – – Alison Mudditt
Robert Harington and Alison Mudditt, CEO of PLOS, in conversation in this series of perspectives from some of Publishing’s leaders across the non-profit and profit sectors of our industry.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Business Models: A Bestiary of Revenue Streams
Business models for publishers fall into four broad categories, defined by how revenue is generated. Some classes of content lend themselves to one model over another.
Network-based Citation Metrics: Eigenfactor vs. SJR
Can network-based metrics allow us to separate true scientific influence from mere popularity?
Revisiting: Why Hasn’t Scientific Publishing Been Disrupted Already?
Six-plus years later, it’s time to revisit Michael Clarke’s now-classic post about disruption, or rather the lack thereof, in scientific publishing.
The Reproducibility Initiative — Solving a Problem, or Just Another Attempt to Draw on Research Funds?
A new initiative seeks to solve the reproducibility problem in science, but instead seems to be creating more of a drag on research funds, ignoring the incentives of scientists, and raising barriers to its very utilization.
PeerJ Membership Model and The Paradox Of The Loyal Customer
Pivoting away from individual memberships to sources of institutional funding, PeerJ has entered into a crowded market of low-cost megajournals. Can it survive?
Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinking Preprint Badges!
By incorporating post-publication validation badges into preprints, bioRxiv begins to transform itself from a preprint server into a publishing platform.
Why Hasn’t Scientific Publishing Been Disrupted Already?
Despite predictions and analyses to the contrary, STM publishing hasn’t been disrupted yet. Perhaps there’s more here than meets the eye . . .
Meeting Reader Needs: The Increasingly Difficult Search for Grassroots Among the Astroturf
Hype and marketing angles aren’t adequate ways to truly help real people succeed in the information age.
Predicting the Present
The text of a presentation delivered at the recent NFAIS national conference, covering various scenarios for the future of publishing. The argument is that these future scenarios are already evident in the world of the present day, though in embryonic form, and that by studying the “embryos,” we can make reasonable predictions as to where things are headed.